Bizarre Beetle Battles Enthrall Onlookers at Tokyo Tourney

Oh, that's gotta hurt!Passions were running hot & fast at this year's IWBC as months of rigorous practice and training were put to the ultimate test! Let's go to our correspondent standing ringside for the exciting play by play:

"When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles, they call this a Muddle Puddle Tweetle Poodle Beetle Noodle Bottle Paddle Battle."

Puttin' the poke in pokemonThank you Dr. Seuss! What, you're laughing? Scoffing? Hey, you'd better believe that beetles really do battle! The Insect World Battle Championships (IWBC) recently held in Tokyo - and not on the back of a poodle, sorry - saw fearsome looking Rhinoceros beetles engaging in struggles of immense proportions - no matter that each "fighter" was just a couple of inches long.

Turn and fight!Under searing hot lights and the blazing eyes of their "trainers", pairs of pug-ugly Rhinoceros beetles clashed exoskeleton against exoskeleton in a fight to the finish. At least, the fight was finished when one long-leggeddy beastie prodded the other out of the ring. Need some hot beetle on beetle action? Look no further - check this out!

Beetle battling is nothing new in Japan, where boys have been catching, breeding and, well, battling the bugs for centuries. Today imported specimens have made an impression, with prices for some of the larger ones up to 3 inches long reaching into the thousands of dollars! Whew, how many weeks of allowances is that?? City kids with a few hundred yen to spare buy their Rhinoceros beetles and associated supplies at specialty beetle shops or, as in the accompanying image, from a handy vending machine like this one near Morioka in northern Japan. Males for fighting go for the bargain price of 300 yen, females destined for breeding are cheaper at just 100 yen each. Don't blame me, gals, that's just the Law of the Jungle. (image via strongcopywriting.com )

Now let's go back to our ringside reporter, Dr. Seuss, for a thrilling recap of the day's events... "When a Fox is in the bottle where the Tweetle Beetles battle with their paddles in a puddle on a noodle-eating poodle, THIS is what they call... a Tweetle Beetle Noodle Poodle Bottled Paddled Muddled Duddled Fuddled Wuddled Fox In Socks, Sir!" (via stuff.co.nz )